Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Best & easiest way to 301 redirect on IIS
-
Hi all,
What is the best and easiest way to 301 redirect URLs on IIS server?
I got access to the FTP and WordPress back office, but no access to the server admin.
Is there an easy way to create 301 redirect without having to always annoy the tech in charge of the server?
Thanks!
-
Thanks a lot for your answer

-
You have two options:
- Set it up in IIS Manager (best option, least overhead for the server, need no coding skills)
- Code it in classic ASP in a global include file that all pages reference before sending content back to the browser.
Here's a great article that walks you through the IIS config option. For this, you need access to IIS Manager:
Sounds like that option is unavailable to you however.
For the other option: your site probably has a file or two that's included at the start of all web pages. (If not, you can add it). In that file, you'll want to check the URL passed in like this:
Dim sThisPage = Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME")
If (LCase(sThisPage) = "/oldpage.aspx") Then
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "http://" & sThisServer & "/newpage.aspx"
Response.End
End If -
Any IIS expert around?..

-
There - you can see how often I have worked on IIS servers

-
there is no .htaccess on IIS servers

-
No problem, I'll have a look for another website
thanks -
Nor was I.
If you have FTP access, you might then have to work in the .htaccess file and build the redirects in there.
-Andy
-
Bummer, I was not aware of that, its such an awesome plugin
-
Hi Vadim,
Thanks for your answer, however it looks that the redirection plugin works only for apache servers.
-
Hi Andy,
thanks, it works for IIS servers too?
- Benoit.
-
Hi Benoit,
Yes, Andy is totally on it. Server side redirects are faster, however if you have Wordpress a plugins make it so much easier and convenient.
Also if you want other powerful features like: 404 error monitoring - captures a log of 404 errors and allows you to easily map these to 301 redirects, and more Try Redirection plugin
Hope this Helps!
-
Absolutely - Install this plugin: http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-301-redirects/
I use this on a couple of my own sites and it works a treat.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How effective are 301 redirects in passing page rank?
I have a blog which is ranking well for certain terms, and would like to repurpose it to better explain these terms it is ranking for, including updating the url to the new term the blog will be about. The plan being to 301 redirect the old url to new. In the past, I've done this with other pages, and have actually lost much of the rankings that I had earned on the original URL. What is your take on this? Maybe repurpose blog, but maintain original URL just to be on the safe side? Thanks
Technical SEO | | CitimarineMoz0 -
301 Redirects in subfolders
Hi, we're making our site into a static site but I would like to transfer the Google juice. Most of the links and database exist on subfolders though. Could I simply do 301 redirects on the subfolders and retain the value or does it have to be on the full domain?
Technical SEO | | Therealmattyd0 -
301 redirect relative or absolute path?
Hello everyone, Recently we've changed the URL structure on our website, and of course we had to 301 redirect the old urls to the coresponding new ones. The way the technical guys did this is: "http://www.domain.com/old-url.html" 301 redirect to "/new-url.html"
Technical SEO | | Silviu
meaning as a relative redirect path, not an absolute one like this:
"http://www.domain.com/old-url.html" 301 redirect to "http://www.domain.com/new-url.html" This happened for few thousands urls, and the fact is the organic traffic dropped for those pages after this change. (no other changes were made on these pages and the new urls are as seo friendly as possible, A grade on On-Page Grader). The question is: does the relative redirect negatively affects seo, or it counts the same as an absolute path redirect? Thanks,
S.0 -
Questions about the Sandbox and 301 Redirects
Does the sandbox still exist? What if you have a brand new URL and do a 301 redirect from another website because the name of the service business changed? Thanks for any insight and help.
Technical SEO | | SDSLaw0 -
301 Redirect with index.asp
I am very new to all of this so forgive the newbie questions I will get better. Ok so after starting a campaign I see that I have many issues including where some pages are being deemed as duplicate content. 1. The report says the http://lucid8.com has duplicate content on 2 other pages 2. When I look at them it shows that http://lucid8.com/index.asp and http://www.lucid8.com are duplicates. 3. Really these are the exactly the same page because the default page that is opened for www.lucid8.com http://www.lucid8.com etc always opens the index.asp page. 4. Now I read that I should do permanent redirects and how to do this via IIS and I tried to do a redirect from index.asp to www.lucid8.com but that does not work because www.lucid8.com is pointing to index.asp and so we end up in a circle. So the question is how do I get rid of these duplicate page references without causing problems. Thanks
Technical SEO | | TroyW0 -
301 Redirect on a PDF, DOCX files?
Hi, I have to rename many pdf and docx files. How can I implement 301 redirect on them as they are linked from 'n' number of places? Regards, Shailendra Sial
Technical SEO | | IM_Learner1 -
How to create a delayed 301 redirect that still passes juice?
My company is merging one of our sites into another site. At first I was just going to create a 301 redirect from domainA.com to domainB.com but we decided that would be too confusing for customers expecting to see domainA.com so we want to create a page that says something like "We've moved. please visit domainB.com or be redirected after 10 seconds". My question is, how do I create a redirect that has a delay and will this still pass the same amount of juice that a regular 301 redirect would? I've heard that meta refreshes are considered spammy by Google.
Technical SEO | | bewoldt0 -
Double 301 redirect
Hi together, due to some technical reasons I have redirect (301) an existing link two times. Example: www.mydomain.com/root/site.html > 301 > www.mydomain.com/site.html > 301 www.mydomain.com/site_new.html Is there anybody how has got some experience like doing a double redirect? What about link juice? Best regards Steffen
Technical SEO | | steffen_0